He prowls,
loose and deadly,
fears,
light and hungry.

But they don't tell him,
NO,
they don't tell
if they're laughing
or crying.

(Aren't they moving their mouths?)

He pleads,
flailing,
wanting to fail,
but he warns them, still,

(Why aren't you afraid?)

they don't stop him.

He should run,
save them.

(Please listen!)

He can't,
and black shields him.

(Stop hurting me.)

Void and
blinding
and gone,

he stands,
towers.

(Don't look at me.)

There are strands
on his fingers,
pulling the bones,
digging,
gripping,

touching,

(Tasting?)

next to nothing
around him,
and black pierces,
picks him.

(Where did they go?)

He hears them part,
then gnashes them,
gnaws them,
his snarls beg from them,

(Where did you go?)

and it panics,
urges,
burrows
in skin

(Get out of my ears.)

They sicken his eyes,
cover them,
throw them,

(Get out of my ears.)

sense leaves him with nothing.
As nothing,
he stands,

(Move.)

he prowls,

(Move.)

loose,

(Move me.)

deadly,

(Make me.)

and fears,

(Warn me!)

light,

(Me.)

and hungry.


;Narcissist.

If I could save even one person, maybe I would speak.

、、、、

Her flesh wrapped around her like kudzu on a tree, parasitically engaged in what others yearned for.

If you can't rely on blood, who do you have left?

So I stayed. Because no one would come near. How kind she was. How gracious and loving and loved.

、、、、

Her skin became cold. The very ***** dedicated to masking her advanced structure became like a marble slab left in the snow. That flesh that cradled her meaningless meanings hardened like the exoskeletons she imitated.

She was an insect through and through.

、、、、

And even if cold was the absence of heat, the left-behind contraband someone else came to cherish, she emanated the very invasion that enveloped her.

She radiated her icy salvation.

、、、、

And so when the time came that I was able to touch her...
When it was upon my own flesh I would feel what she refused to feel, she grasped onto me.

As if she longed to drag me into her abyss with one last throe, one last labor of love for her blood.

、、、、

My fingers never fell off, but I was frost bitten. My organs never failed, but I was shredded apart by the sting of the sobbing wind.

、、、、

I didn't become her marble carcass like I should have.

、、、、

She didn't take me with her.

I couldn't save her anymore.

Not even if I had devoted my life to doing so. Never again. She left me behind, and I was cold too.

、、、、

My skin is not chilled to the touch. My muscles are not the remnants of a frozen cicada shell. My skeleton is not made of the icicles left to melt in the sun's triumph.

My tendons ache in the wake of an ancient breeze that blew by far too late.

、、、、

I am not a slab of cold marble.

、、、、

I am a starkly darkened visage to behold and not be held, forever turning over and over,
never ceasing and always yearning for that which never was, and that which will never be.

I was only for their sake. Never mine, even if I pretended.

、、、、

This endless daydream that expands before and behind me, that twists in tendrils that are deplorably mine and

soak in the oily water that inisists on being my keeper... I will not let go of the ribcage it offers to my grasping hands.

I will bear who I am. I am my sickness.

、、、、

I will plunge into the needy and engorged expanse of shifting flowers and lodged viscera.

I will continue to encase and cease.

、、、、

Forever in my head.
Forever in my skull. Forever tapping in my cage. Forever clipping my scrawny wings. Forever sincere.

、、、、

I loved her, and I couldn't
save her.

She was dead, and I couldn't save her.

She was alive, and I couldn't save her.

、、、、

What remains?
Irreparable me.

Eventually my memory
will lament
in daydreams
//:.
that my pride
was dissolving in my bed,
//:.
that my solace
was pacing vehemently in my head,
//:.
that my martyrdom
was telling me I may recover,
//:.
that my return
was murmuring softly,
//:.
that my fury
was invading my hiding door,
//:.
that my frenzy
was stabbing at my scalp,
//:.

and perhaps my memory
will stutter
as always,
//:.


and I can stack my scabs again.

It was not her.
//
When she saw me hurting,
she knew it was not her.
//
When she saw me sobbing,
it was not her.
//
When she saw me choking on my breath,
//
when she saw me shaking in shock,
//
when she saw me screaming for an escape,
//
it was not her.
//
I cowered in my skin
and it was not her.
//
And when I was dying,
it was not her,
for once.
//
I stole away from her
her hands
and her broken rage,
//
her sorrow and terror,
her unwavering pain,
//
so that
for once,
she would
not
have to
hurt again.
//
I was so kind,
so for once,
//
it was not her.

There is a blood
that is beating in my skull
that is gluing my veins
and is pulsing in some silence,

へへペ
but my hands are moving,
but my breaths are dripping
out and watching me
without reason or thought,
and my tongue is ticking too,
howling from me a language
I have yet to understand,
let alone voice,
and in the end,

へへペ
an urgency is returning me
as a snapped over twist,
leaving me without purchase
and bleaching my words stark,
so I wonder:

へへペ
what's in my bones
that's making me move?